Nikos Doulos is a visual artist, curator, and co-director of Expodium in Utrecht (NL) – an ‘urban do tank’ that utilizes artistic means to address urban challenges and the ever-changing nature of cities.

Doulos interests lie with the investigation of pedagogical modes for inclusive knowledge production framed under site-specific research trajectories and temporal interventions. In his work, he creates malleable situations/conditions as participatory infrastructures and ‘soft’ knowledge generators.

Walking holds a predominant part in his practice.

He is the founder of NIGHTWALKERS – a participatory nocturnal walking project investigating the contemporary identity of the flanêur, performed in (among others) the Netherlands, Serbia, Sweden, Italy, Hungary, South Korea and Greece

He has presented collaborative projects at the Trafó House of Contemporary Arts (Budapest), Bildmuseet (Umeå), participated at the Impakt Festival (Utrecht), the Athens Biennale: #4 AGORA and the 53rd October Salon and has lead workshops for UNIDEE – Cittadelartte Pistoletto Foundation and the University of the Arts, Uniarts Helsinki. In 2017 he participated at Capacete Athens – a nine-month residency in Athens under the broader framework of Documenta 14.

Doulos is a co-curator of the Unmaking The Netherlands program initiated by Expodium and a co-editor of the Unmaking or How To Rethink Urban Narratives publication.

Since 2016, he holds a position at the DAI ROAMING ACADEMY as the Senior Coordinator of Planetary Campus.

She is an artist and an independent curator. Her work is centered around contemporary practices and those hybrid productions that emerge from dialogues and correspondences with the other.

“Eliana and our rooms. Jari and our neighborhood life. Raul and ourbreakfasts. Gian and his bread. Rodrigo and the silence. Fabiana an her voice. Sol, Michelle and the discussions. Jota and her radical tenderness. Nikos and his walks. Vasiliki surprising. Helmut and his havaianas. Still with me.”

Fabiana Faleiros (Brasil, 1980) is a poet, performer and researcher. She is doctoral student in the Arts and Culture program at UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, and Lady Incentivo, whose album Lady Incentivo: novas formas de amar e de gravar CD (Lady Incentivo: new ways to make love and to make CDs) was recorded at Mobile Radio BSP, during the 30th Bienal de São Paulo. Between 2015 and 2016 she has been touring with the Mastur Bar, an itinerant bar project that travelled to Cuba (Fabrica de Arte Cubano, Havanna), Colombia (Kuir Bogotá, International Festival for Queer Arts and Cinema), and through Brazilian cities such as São Paulo, Porto Alegre and Belém do Pará. In 2016 she published the book O pulso que cai e as tecnologias do toque (The Wrist that Drops and the Technologies of Touch). Ikrek: São Paulo. Currenty she participes in Capacete residency in colaboration with Documenta 14 (Athens, Kassel).

Gian Spina was born in São Paulo (Brazil) and lived, studied and worked besides others in San Diego (USA), Vancouver (Canada), Bordeaux (France), Berlin and Frankfurt (Germany).

Today he writes, periodically to the to the World Policy Institute and Arts Everywhere. As well as a guest professor at the Art Academy of Palestine, in 2017 take part at art residence program organized by the Dokumenta 14.

Eliana Otta is a multidisciplinary artist. Through drawing, writing, video, installations and participatory projects, she associates simple details from everyday life that can speak about complex processes in specific contexts, inquiring how subjectivities shape public space by relating the personal to the political, as well as individual and shared memories to questions about the present and our possible collective wishes for the future. Economic inequality, precarious labor, gender violenceand our relation with nature in neoliberal extractivist systems, are some of her main focus of interest.

Ian Erickson-Kery is a PhD student at Duke University, where he researches and writes on Latin American art, literature, territorial conflicts, and geographical imaginaries. In recent years he has moved itinerantly between the north and the south, the art world and academia, and the city and the country, all of which shape the topography of his work. With equal fondness for PraçaTiradentes and Vale do Anhangabaú, he is nonpartisan in the Carioca-Paulista rivalry.

Artist, researcher, micro-political activist and self-revolutionary. As an artist she transits into the field of a collaborative art in which the public is invited to participate in performance situations relating her body to poetic contexts loaded with a kind of humor and criticism. In January 2017, when she joined the AiR Q21 International Art Residence Program at the Museum Quartier in Vienna, Austria, she held the workshop “Silent images shout body policies” at the Raum_D art space of the Museum Quartier.

Camilla Rocha Campos is currently director of the international art residency CAPACETE in Rio de Janeiro, where she also participated in the program as an artist in 2016, when she conducted the open research project “Respira Conspira” in partnership with artist and resident Thora Dolven Balke.

Anna Bakis a visual artist and curator/organizer. She works in different medias, primarily with installation. She took her Master in Fine Arts from The Funen Arts Academy in Denmark, with an supplementing exchange year with a Fulbright Scholarship, at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, USA.

Chun’s practice includes creating works in video and installation. Using a whimsical and humorous approach, her work explores local narratives to examine the intersections and contradictions found in cultural, social and personal identities as a result of geographic relocation, and cultural multiplicity. Chun’s personal experience living in the Korean diaspora in Bolivia, and Canada, informs her work which reveals the idiosyncrasies found in culture, in its inconclusive and contradictory nature.

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“The first edition of Archives of Resistance took place at Capacete in November 2016. This project is multi faceted and aims to create an open dialogue between communities across the Americas facing various socio-political struggles as a result of historic processes of colonization that still dictates today’s global economic realities.

Through contemporary art, invited artists shared their work informed by personal research and collected images, news items, and raw materials, which expand beyond traditional notions of archives and institutionalized documents that are categorized by hegemonic political powers. At Capacete, we brought together artists from Chile, Costa Rica, Argentina, Canada, and Brazil in dialogue by sharing their individual projects looking at the ways in which artists subvert or give new meanings to the colonial construction of history. Through personal or historical imagery, artists told alternate histories from the perspective of those that are often unaccounted for in mainstream versions of history.

This first event Arquivos de Resistencia took the form of a week-long residency for invited artists, a video screening of their works as well as artist talks and group dynamic activities. The group was further expanded through the participation of representatives from an activist group from the community of Horto whom invited the group for a tour of this community facing eviction and rapid gentrification of bicentenial residents, workers of the city’s Botanical Gardens.

Participating artists in this project were: Marton Robinson (Costa Rica) who gave an in-depth historical context of Limon, Costa Rica in line with the narrative of Jamaican-descendents who were brought to Costa Rica as labourers and the rise of Marcus Garvey’s activism; Araya-Carrion, a Chilean collective that works with material archives to demonstrate the layers within the history of Colonization of Indigenous populations in the south of Chile; Cecilia Estalles, a queer Argentian artist who has been digitizing the first Trans archives collecting stories of Trans women who faced police brutality in the 1980s; and Canadian artist Joyce Wieland’s work that showed solidarity for left leaning artists and political activists. These artists were brought together by Capacete resident artist soJin Chun. Other residents that collaborated in this project were, Kadija de Paula, Ian Erickson-Kery, and Soledad Leon.

Kadija de Paula combines food, text and performance to make self-organizing and alternative economical experiments.

Kadija was activating the kitchen at Capacete, and before she used the book store as an office with other members of Agência Transitiva, a collective we had between 2013 and 2015. The office usage was called as Programa Epifita.

Trained at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in the city of Paris and at the Geneva School of Art and Design, I thwart the codes of classical dramaturgy to create performative forms that question the plasticity of performance .

Currently is doing a two year residency (2017-2019) at Hangar in Barcelona (SP) https://hangar.org .Also is working for the Centre Dramatique National de Besançon, Université de Franche-Comté and at La Comédie de Reims.

Giseli is a cultural worker and interdisciplinary artist from Brazil based in US. She has been organizing festivals, workshops, exhibitions and publications that discuss media and technology related to the Brazilian scene of art and activism. Most of the projects are collaborative process that highlights practices on tactical media and radical pedagogies related to internet culture. Her work has already been presented in Quito (LabSurLab), Amsterdam (N5M), New Delhi (Sarai), Vienna (MQ21), Berlin (Radical Networks), São Paulo (31st Biennial of São Paulo, Sesc Pompeia), Rio de Janeiro (Capacete, Lastro).

Andrew de Freitas employs a range of mediums in order to explore issues arising from everyday perception and the formation of meaning and feeling. Central to his practice is design and construction, rearrangement of sensory data, experimentation with expanded methods of production and the narrative form.

“One night last year when passing through Berlin I ended up sitting at a big table in some Italian kind of place, with a group of people, all of whom I genuinely enjoy and admire in some way. Which is a nice place to find yourself in. And I think it was Julien Bismuth that said, hey, we should send a selfie to Helmut, presumably to make him jealous or proud – considering that altogether these folks at the table probably represented a strata of at least 15 years capacete, in the sense of capacete being amongst many other things, a diverse and networked constellation of people, who all in some way were connected through Rio de Janeiro. And it wasn’t a milestone or anything particularly remarkable, because for myself and many others there, it’s something that can happen quite often with people you get to know through capacete. And I think Julien took a photo, which I never saw, and we started to talk for while about what it is about capacete that creates this kind of thing. Which I suppose you could call, among many other things, meaningful relationships. There are tonnes of examples of groups, organizations, scenes, cities institutions etc that facilitate friendships and connections, and form also a sense of shared identity. For example, it could be that you lived in a a particular city at a certain time, attended a school or academy, or had some kind of job somewhere, and you have a group of friends or acquaintances that you associate with that time or place, and whom you keep a connection to because of it. But what we were noticing that night in Berlin was that of all the people we know from all those kinds of time and place that we’ve experienced, the relationships that are formed through capacete, often in rio, but not exclusively, tend to be meaningful, and lasting ones. relationships that don’t expire so easily.”

My work comprises several different operations, which are distinct but in dialogue.
On the one hand I make images, in series: drawings, mainly, but also collages and photographs. This iconographic work, and the different ways in which it’s elaborated, are infused with permanent sculptural activity. On the other hand, I design publications that are exclusively comprised of images I myself have produced, and others, taken from books or commissioned from guest artists. Their modes of publication vary between self-publication, collaborations and participations in existing collections. But they’re all part of the same movement: that of creating conditions for narration.

Oliver Bulas studied biology before he became an art student at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany (2005-2012) and at SFAI in San Francisco, US. He creates ‘constructed situations, in which the visitor immerses. He uses performance and he works in public space. Bulas is wondering if the public space is a place where differences clash and are negotiated. A place where maybe a short flash of social space can incidentally shine up as a utopian moment. He was a postgraduate researcher at Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL. Solo exhibitions (selection): PARSE, New Orleans, US (2016), M.1 Arthur Boskamp Stiftung Hohenlockstedt, GER (2013); [MAKNETE] (Galerie für Landschaftskunst), Hamburg, GER (2012); Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, GER (2012), Kunstverein in Hamburg, GER (2008). Group exhibitions (selection): CAC, Vilnius, LIT (2017), Despina, Rio de Janeiro,BRA (2017), Y Gallery, New York, US (2015), Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg, GER (2013); basis Frankfurt e.V., Frankfurt, GER (2013); Swell Gallery, San Francisco, US (2011); Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York, US (2007); Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, FR (2003). Currently he is studying computer sciences in Berlin.

I was thinking about you those last few days as people from my residency are asking to me to answer to three questions. I am sure you had to handle with them also in your life. I think you also probably provoke them, not waiting from others to ask them to you.
If I am looking closely to the questions, for sure, you didn’t really think about the first one. Even if I would be very happy to hear your opinion about what is a helmet for you? And I can bet that you would answered something like: the best thing to protect your head when Ben Patterson is crashing a violin on it.

Anyway, it is probably a good excuse for me to answer to this question as I have now to explain to you what I understood after 5 months of residency of what is CAPACETE for me – for sure, as I can only perceived and then speak from my own subjectivity. CAPACETE is called after the bad pronunciation of the first name of its director, Helmut/Helmet/CAPACETE in Portuguese.

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A CAPACETE is related to the head and Helmut is, let’s say, a strong-head as the head of CAPACETE. From his head to earth is born a place where in a very specific space and time people are invited most of the time to take part of a flux of ideas, words, actions, experiences, conversations, knowledges, sharing, etc. and to immerse themselves in the Brazilian daily life in general and the carioca one in particular.

CAPACETE’s action is mostly to create, maintain, nourish, an international network which can take part in researches, creations, thoughts, processes connected to the Brazilian territory and social situation.
If I am looking at your manifesto, I see some common points:

So, this year, CAPACETE had invited 13 residents to be part of its immersive, intense, experience. Since the beginning, the idea is somehow to create a “group” – which was not the principle before from what I understood. This “group” has to share some common situations which are somehow participating in the fact of creating a “group”: collective housing for most of the residents; collective seminars and workshops; collective participation in the organisation of CAPACETE’s weekly events.

Indeed, it seems very fast that the question which appeared was to ask how to start as a group (a number of persons or things ranged or considered together as being related in some way) to realize some collective (Relating to or shared by all the members of a group) actions and share collective experiences.

In search with a definition of “collective”, I found yours – it seems that Beuys is quoting you in another letter – I think it is a very good definition. But, how were you dealing with your strong/big/imposant ego, dear George? How people were subscribing and possibly unsubscribing from your collective? Do we need some rules written? How can we be sure to know exactly if we are sharing the same desires, ideals? And how are we deciding what should be collective or individual actions? I just remembered you postcard to Nam June Paik

And wonder if the collective is always bending personal will.

I start to think deeply that groups start to be collective when they decide to be a collective. In other terms, when some people start to join each other, create a group, in order to share actions, energies, thoughts and desires, then they are on the way to be a collective.
Other kind of groups are related by circumstances like teams, classes, employees, etc…. and are most of the time WORKING together in order to reach a goal which is outside each individuals.

In CAPACETE, there is one group, and few appearing collectives. Individualities remain of course. The notions of group, collective and individual are all mixed together here. It is surprising to understand that most of the tensions we have as a group come from finding a way to create a conversation between those three poles: each one seem to be afraid to disappear because of the interaction with the others. But we all know that creating a common project should not exclude the differences. Big egos should survive :). I guess, the group will find a way to create a shared situation where collectives and individuals can follow their paths in and outside this specific group; or how common energy can unite various goals, desires and trajectories.

If not, the Flux could be interrupted.

Ok, I suppose that’s it for tonight. The date of my letter is already wrong now. I spend to much time on watching some Jonas Mekas’ video about Britney Spears…. It is weird to think that you even didn’t have the time to hear about her (among so many others).

“It has been a little more than a year since I left Rio de Janeiro and right now I couldn’t be further away. I’m writing this from an old wooden cabin with no electricity and running water, in the middle of the Swedish forests covered in snow. It’s early morning, it’s pitch dark outside and there are no sounds except from my own breathing and this pen moving on the paper. It’s freezing cold and I’m sitting right next to a stove and a pile of firewood, my only light source is a candle gently swaying. There are no other houses close by, no neighbours, no traffic, just trees and trees and frozen lakes and rocks covered in icy moss.

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At this very moment I couldn’t be further away from Capacete in Rua Benjamin Constant, but still it feels so close and so much a part of my body. In fact, not a single day has passed in this year where I haven’t thought of my time in Capacete and Rio, I only need to close my eyes and all the noises and smells come right back to me. It can happen any moment and anywhere, when queuing in the supermarket or driving on my bike through Copenhagen, then suddenly out of nowhere I’m taken back to Benjamin Constant, to Capacete where I lived for a long period and spent most of my time: I hear the sounds of kids playing next door, the dealers shouting in the street outside, a stereo playing music from a neighbour’s window or a singer from the music school practising her scores. I see faces of people, friends and strangers passing by. I remember conversations we have had, meals and presentations in the yard downstairs. I can vaguely feel the hot days and the heavy rains, the moist and the sweat. I think of talks, laughters, discussions and fights; of days imbued with so much joy and high-spirited inspiration.

These sensations also come to me at night when sleeping and they often do. I have had so many weird dreams taken place in or around Capacete, but last night’s dream is the most vivid and I feel like sharing it with you, so please bare with me: Capacete had taken the form of some kind of boat or ferry full of decks and cabins. There was something slightly decadent about it, like a yacht from the 70’s, rusty in some places but still grand in its appearance. Other times it was more like a vessel, a watercraft simply floating onwards. On board we were mostly just a few passengers: me, Helmut, Andrew, the captain and a bunch of wild monkeys (sagüis). But sometimes other people would hop onboard and stay for some time and at one point there was suddenly a massive crowd partying on one of the upper decks. There was no doubt that Helmut owned this boat, but he was not in charge of it. The captain was an older Filipino man and he had a very rowdy way of steering the ship. We were on some unknown Brazilian river, long and curvy and also very narrow at times, almost to the point where we couldn’t pass, so the captain would bump the ship from side to side, forcing us through. Sometimes it felt like being in a rollercoaster in an amusement park, full-speed down a waterfall, other times it felt like we were slowly free-floating and barely moving. I never got the feeling that we knew where we were going, but no one seemed to mind, sailing, floating or river-fating down this endless stream of water. Helmut and Andrew were always in a funny mood and would climb around on the railing of the boat; go on land for days and then return. They always seemed busy with something and it was clear that they were enjoying themselves. And so was I, although I was more of an observer and never understood what we were up to, but still it felt important to be there and I never considered leaving the ship. …

It was a long and lucid dream full of details, one of those dreams that can stay with you for hours and days, perhaps even months. I know my time in Capacete will stay in my body for the rest of my life and I am so grateful for the ride.

“I have been running the kitchen of Capacete for the last 3 years, sporadically but always present. In the forwarded maps you have three events that I found the most relevant:

– Exavating the Antropochene

– reading group of the Queer Vegan Manifesto

– the creation of: cozinha en estado de ____________

In all these 3 projects Capacete went thought a big transformation. With the first one the becoming of organic, where we cooked with organic ingredients from local farmers. With the second one, the becoming vegan. And finally with the last one the becoming less centralised, with minor heirachical organisation”

Maricruz Alarcón was born in 1983 in Santiago de Chile. Her practice combines interdisciplinary studio work with critical writing about filmmaking. She studied at Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Parsons The New School for Design and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Her work has been shown in several exhibitions including at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo and Galería Die Ecke in Santiago; Museo de LaEne in Buenos Aires; and The Kitchen, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, and TEMP Space in New York.

Yael Davids is an artist born in Israel who lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Sculpture at the Pratt Institute, New York and Choreography and Dance Pedagogy at the Remscheid Academie. Her works are predominantly performance-based, sometimes involving herself as performer at other times working with groups.

“I took part in Máquina de Responder, a program that happened in parallel to the 29. São Paulo Biennial in 2010/2011. After the end of this program, a few of us remained working together on a book. Two years later, in 2013, I went to a mobile residency in the Amazone. In this trip, I met Bik van der Pol, also residents at the time, and joined their master program at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. Since then I leave in the Netherlands. It was through Capacete that I moved to the Netherlands, where I live for 5 years. It’s a radical gesture to encourage artists to not produce work during the residence. It’s a permission to slow down and rather listen, observe, interact, beliving that whatever happens in these periods will inevitably produce result in the future. Capacete is a community of people it has the magic of making you feel part of it.”